was simply liturgical, and, if it could have reflected, would have been astounded to find itself a pivot for momentous bearings upon doctrine. Doubtless, the Article describes the Church under two obvious attributes, viz., as a body which, while catholic enough to spread the world over, should never forget that it is a body, not for separation of parts, not for schisms, but for unity, for intercommunion. It has but one Head, but one Lord, and so there should be oneness through the whole, however widely extended. That is, it should be, how wide soever its domain, but a single communion!1

But the comma was complained of as intensely doctrinal, though it was simply and solely a liturgical effort to help a rector with catechumens! And still, if put away, as it is, why is its fellow semicolon still put away after "He descended into Hell?” "He descended into Hell The third day He rose from the dead," is but one Article; and so the old semicolon after Hell was dropped, and a comma inserted in its place. If one semicolon must be extinguished, the other should be also. Our present standard is inconsistent with itself!

No one who has never revised the Prayer Book for the press, has any conception of the difficulty of punctuating it upon proper liturgical principles, and of making it "at unity with itself." A standard edition should be first published in a proposed form, as was the standard of 1844. That form should remain open for free criticism, between two General Conventions, and then adopted after a thorough sifting of its merits.

A HARMONY OF THE FOUR GOSPELS IN GREEK, according to the text of Tischendorf; with a Collation of the Textus Receptus, and the texts of Griesbach, Lachman, and Tregelles. By Frederic Gardiner, D.D., Professor in the Berkeley Divinity School. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.

We are agreeably surprised to find that a work prepared amid the atmosphere of our Connecticut School of Theology has been republished in Scotland, by such a house as that of Messrs. T. & T. Clark. The work is criticised briefly by the "British Quarterly; and as that smacks pretty strongly of Presbyterianism and Congre

'The history of the Creed itself shows this. The clause, "The Communion of Saints," was not in the earlier copies of the Creed, but was, probably, introduced in the times of the Donatist schism. So it relates to this world, and not the text; and is simply a Church protest against schismatical divisions.

gationalism, we did not anticipate praise for an Episcopal publication. But we believe the "Review" tries to be fair; albeit, it works from a stand-point not more to our fancy than the one from which we work would be to theirs. Suum cuique; we give the Scotch reviewers all the commendation we can, and thank them for such language as this concerning an emanation from one of the oldest of England's colonies: "This volume will be very useful to certain classes of students. The title-page quoted above, lengthy as it is, hardly conveys all the information that a cursory inspection of the volume will easily supply. One valuable feature of the work is a careful tabular collation of the harmonies of Robinson, Greswell, Stroud, and Tischendorf, with an index which enables the student at once to find any portion of the four Gospels in the author's diatessaron."

We can remember the day when the word "lengthy" was accounted a sheer and bald Americanism. If it is, our Scotch neighbors seem to have adopted it without wincing. But this by the way. After commending an American author, it was natural to recoil and abate a little, and so the reviewers say, "The parable of the minae is thought to be so closely identified with that of the talents, that the latter is torn from Matthew, xxv., and placed in juxtaposition with Luke, xix. 11-28. Whatever general harmony of illustration is observable here, it appears to us to be a grievous wrong to the sublime contrasts in Matthew, xxv., to tear that discourse to pieces." However, the seeming harshness of this criticism is palliated by a concluding sentence. "Though we differ largely as to details, we thank Dr. Gardiner for a book which provides so much valuable material for study."

LUYSTER'S CATALOGUE OF IMPORTED Books, No. 76.
N. Y., upstairs.

138 Fulton street,

They who have never visited No. 138 Fulton street, should do so as soon as convenient, provided, only, they take care not to meet with such a fate as a reverend friend of ours once did. He emptied his pocket before he knew it, had not enough left to buy a dinner, and to pay his railroad fare had incontinently to borrow! We have picked up the following slip from a secular paper, which we think does Mr. Luyster no more than justice. We have dealt with him for years, and can adopt every word of it:

The best books are not always new books. The finest works in the literature of all the European nations are old, and the finest editions are often the

old ones. The popular demand now is for cheap books, and most of the new publications are cheaply got up; but many book-buyers are probably not aware that there is a place in the city of New York where the best English editions of ancient and modern books can be had at prices less than are often paid for trash. Mr. A. L. Luyster is an importer of English and foreign books, who has a vast collection of volumes lining the walls of several large rooms in the upper part of the spacious building, 138 Fulton street. He has agents in Europe, who forward fresh invoices by nearly every steamer, and he issues a catalogue every month or two. These catalogues are excellent descriptive and priced lists of the books, and persons who are fond of bibliography, or sometimes indulge in the purchase of rare old and fine new books, should send their addresses to Mr. Luyster, and solicit an occasional catalogue, from which selections can be made, almost as well as though one went to the trouble and expense of a journey to New York. All books sold from his catalogues are warranted perfect, unless otherwise expressly stated; and any books not agreeing with the description may be returned, within ten days, at the option of the purchaser. This is perfectly fair, and leaves no room for dissatisfaction. Mr. Luyster's last two catalogues are now before us; and we find priced and described in them copies of the best editions of a number of standard English authors, a great variety of Shakesperiana, the first and the second edition of the Bishops' Bible (A.D. 1568 and 1572), Cranmer's Bible (1566), a complete set of Pickering's edition of the famous Bridgewater Treatises, the complete works of Hogarth from the original plates, Musee Français, Visconti's Iconographie Grecque et Romaine, a full set of the London Art Journal, and many other rare and valuable works on art. We also notice in one of these catalogues a number of curious treatises on freemasonry. When any of our readers, who delight in books, go to New York, they should spend an hour or two in looking at Mr. Luyster's shelves.

We will add, that, from one of the catalogues referred to, we were able to obtain Sir James Ware's rare folio on Irish history and antiquities. It is a volume we have long sought after in vain. It has a fine head of Sir James as a frontispiece, and was printed at Dublin in 1705. It evidently belonged to a genuine lover of antiques, for it is carefully rebacked, and its torn leaves repaired with as much tact and solicitude as an economical housekeeper would expend in darning the well-worn stockings of mercurial school-boys.

One feature of Irish antiquities, carefully preserved, struck our eyes instantly. The crosses on the coins were Greek crosses, and not Roman crosses. This use of the Greek cross shows that Ireland's early affinities were with the East, and not with Italy. Just so it was in England; in St. Cuthbert's coffin, for example, and in the Church of St. Peiran, when disinterred from the sands.

THE LAW OF DIVORCE, ETC.
(Continued from the July number.)

N important question has arisen, viz., whether these precepts of the Saviour were declared for His Church and followers throughout all time, or were limited to the Jewish nation-legislating for that people only-and correcting the regulations of Moses, or the erroneous interpretation of them by a class of Jews.

Sir James McIntosh observes that this must have been the opinion of Cranmer and his associates (three bishops, twelve ecclesiastics, and several learned laymen), who framed the Reformatio Legum. They proposed to allow an absolute divorce for adultery, cruelty, or desertion, and that the innocent party might remarry.1

Another view may have been taken by them which some have advocated, viz., that what was meant to be forbidden, was the arbitrary power of the husband to put away his wife for any other cause than adultery; but to allow him in that case to exercise his former power by bill of divorcement. Hence the subject of a divorce through judicial process was not affected by any Divine law,

1

History of England, ii. p. 274. Burns' Ecc. Law, ii. p. 503.

xcix.-1

but was left within the province of Church and State to act upon, in their respective spheres. And the occasion and manner of announcing the law in the passages from St. Mark and St. Luke, above cited, somewhat favor this view. Thus in the tenth chapter of St. Mark, the Pharisees ask if it was lawful for a man to put away his wife. The Saviour inquired, "What did Moses command?" The answer was, “He suffered to write a bill of divorcement and put her away." Jesus replied, "That was on account of their hardness of heart, but in the beginning it was not so." Thus far, this absolute authority of the husband, and the mode of its exercise, seems to be all that was had in view; and the argument is plausible, that this was interdicted except in the one specified case, and that no more was intended. And there would be then nothing inconsistent in Church or State allowing the power in other cases upon judicial examination and judgment, and subjecting even the one case to restrictions. There are some proofs that in early ages the divorce for adultery was not necessarily accompanied with judicial formalities. Van Espen mentions a de cree De Divortiis, forbid ding a dismissal without an application to the Episcopal tribunals;1 and in the statements of early Fathers, we find the term dismission sometimes used, without any connection with judicial proceedings.2

But the order of the narrative in the nineteenth chapter of St. Matthew, as well as the precepts therein, are, we apprehend, decisive against, this view. The question is asked, "Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?" The answer was by a reference to the creation of male and female at the beginning; then the declaration, that he who made them pronounced that a man and his wife were no more twain, but one flesh; then this entire union is reannounced by Jesus, and then there is the conclusion and command, What God had joined together, let not man put asunder. The question is put, Why then did Moses sanction a writing of divorcement? The answer is the same as in St. Mark; but from the beginning it was not so. Then we have the result in the shape of a law: "Whosoever, therefore, shall put away his wife, except," etc.; and the comment of the disciples follows.

We cannot scrutinize these passages in their order too closely. How must the Pharisees have understood them? It may be stated thus. We inquired as to the lawfulness of divorcing a wife for any

1 Jus Universum, tome i. p. 609.

See the passages post-Judgments of Fathers.